


Dead Weight

by Duskdog



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Self-Destructive Behavior, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9353417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duskdog/pseuds/Duskdog
Summary: Reinhardt needs to fight. It's all that he knows, all that he is, and he no longer expects anyone else to understand. But when his reckless disregard for his own health finally leads to serious injury, Mercy is there to remind him that she's not just his doctor. She's his friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Recall, but before Ana and Jack reveal that they're alive and return to the fold (assuming they ever get around to it). I have strong feelings about Reinhardt and his never-ending crusade, and his voicelines with Mercy seem to indicate that she has some pretty strong feelings about the direction his life is going, too, so this seemed like a natural interaction to me. There's some mild flirtation here, but it's just meant to be easy teasing between old friends. Don't overlook friendships! This fandom needs more of them desperately.

No one had remembered to make sure that the drop ship -- dusted off and put back into service after years of neglect -- was properly stocked with a stretcher big enough for someone of Reinhardt’s stature, but somehow the group managed to cobble something together while he protested from the ground, insisting weakly that he only needed a few minutes to catch his breath (and convincing absolutely no one).  
  
There was nothing he could do but whimper and scrabble ineffectively against the dirt, equal parts shame at his predicament and shooting agony with every move of his body, as they stripped him of his armor right where he lay. It just added too much weight, and made it difficult to treat him, besides. He couldn’t hold back a broken cry of pain as they shifted him carefully onto the makeshift stretcher, and even Lucio’s music -- thrumming through his very _bones_ , the beat thumping softly in his breastbone like comforting rain on a rooftop, the warmth of the melody sinking deep into his abused muscles -- was barely enough to take the edge off the worst of it.  
  
It took all eight of them to hoist him and carry him back to the small medical bay on the dropship, and when he managed to think of anything at all past the pain in his back, all he could think was that this was how it felt to be _dead weight_. Both literal and metaphorical.  
  
Once he was secure, they left him to Mercy’s… mercy, and she worked around him, efficient as always, but surprisingly silent save for the occasional instruction or pointed question. If he _could_ have gotten up just to prove himself well, he would have, and his very inability to do so shamed him into a matching silence that left him unable to meet her eyes.  
  
It wasn’t until they were safely en route to Gibraltar, pain medication just starting to dull his senses and warm vibration of the ship lulling him into relaxing his clenched muscles, that she finally spoke to him as a _friend_.  
  
“I should let you suffer,” she said, and he supposed that, if the tone had been as cold as the words, he might have been afraid for a moment. But no: they were even, controlled, but _hot_ with anger even so, like a pot quietly seething just below a boil.  
  
“You wouldn’t do that,” he replied, closing his eyes. His head was turned to the side she stood on, but he didn’t really have the angle to look up at her easily anyway without turning his whole body or attempting to push himself up. He wasn’t sure he _could_ do either of those things, and was quite sure that he didn’t _want_ to.  
  
Tomorrow, certainly. He’d feel better tomorrow.  
  
“If I thought it stood the _smallest_ chance of teaching you a lesson, I might!” she bit back. “You were already hurt before we even started, weren’t you? I _knew_ you weren’t moving right!”  
  
She had asked him. Through the haze of drugs and pain, he remembered. He had felt her eyes on him as he armored up on the drop ship, thirty minutes to arrival. _Reinhardt, you seem a little stiff. Are you well?_  
  
He had lied, of course. He resented the intrusion, the critical eyes of a combat medic assessing his battle-worthiness (his _worthiness_ , because the two were inexorably tied in his mind and always would be), _looking_ for a reason why he should stay behind. God knew she had lobbed enough reasons at him already, and he wasn’t interested in hearing any more. He didn’t _want_ to resent his old friend Mercy -- didn’t want to resent anything else, really, because the resentment he already had for his own aching joints and failing eyesight was only growing, _festering_ \-- and he knew that, if she stopped him from fighting, he _would_. She was a pacifist, of sorts, and a genius besides. She had never understood the _need_ to fight, or the helplessness of being unable to contribute in any other way.  
  
The very thought of being _useless_ made his chest tighten, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I’d only tweaked my back a little while sparring.” He hated how soft and breathy his voice sounded. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t _him_. “It gives me a little trouble every now and again. I didn’t want to worry you.”  
  
_That_ wasn’t entirely a lie. He had no desire to add to anyone else’s burden, let alone Angela’s. She already spent entirely too much time and energy and sanity taking care of others. He understood her drive to do so, because he shared it.  
  
It occurred to him, with a touch of uncharacteristic bitterness perhaps prompted by the pain still prodding at his every nerve ending, that _he_ had never tried to stop _her_ from devoting herself fully to her calling. He had only ever tried to support her in it, to make certain she ate and drank and rested, but never, _ever_ had he asked her to _stop_.  
  
“You went into battle with an untreated injury, put your team at risk, and now you’ve hurt yourself further and worried me a great deal more than you would have if you had only come to me beforehand! I won’t even be able to see the full extent of the damage until we’re back at Gibraltar.” She sighed heavily, and he heard the soft scrape of a stool being pulled up by the head of the bed. “Your back isn’t a thing to take for granted, Reinhardt -- neither the spine itself nor the muscles. You may have limited your mobility for the rest of your life! Is that what you want?”  
  
To be unable to fight?  
  
It was unthinkable.  
  
And so, as he always did when faced with the unthinkable, he chose not to think about it.  
  
“I’ll feel much better tomorrow, you’ll see,” he said almost dreamily, ignoring her frustrated scoff. “I’ll play catch with you to prove it. Not with you. _With_ you. I mean I’ll pick you up and, ah... toss you around.”  
  
“Nonsense. You’ll be in bed tomorrow, that’s where you’ll be -- even if I have to tie you to it to keep you there!”  
  
He quirked his good eye open just in time to catch the sight of her fair face going abruptly red, blush rising from the collar up.  
  
“Don’t you _dare_ say one _word_ , Reinhardt Wilhelm! That’s not what I meant, and you know it! You wipe that smirk off your face this instant!”  
  
“You proposed it, not me.” He did not, in fact, wipe that smirk off his face, but it did soften a little, and he closed his eye again. Every little expenditure of energy felt so draining all of a sudden, even simple bursts of simple emotion.  
  
She was silent for a long moment, and then she sighed again. “Ugh,” she said softly, all the heat gone from her voice now, replaced only by a weary sort of fondness. “What am I going to do with you?”  
  
“Besides tie me up…?”  
  
She clucked her tongue. “It’s nice to see the painkillers are kicking in full force. I suppose it’s a good thing that you’re feeling well enough to tease, even if you _are_ being terribly inappropriate. You’re a terrible old man, and I should report you.”  
  
“To who?” he wondered aloud. “ _Winston_?”  
  
Her laugh was soft, delicate. For the moment, at least, it sounded just the same as it had when she had first come to them twenty years ago. No. Better, actually, because at first she hadn’t laughed at all. So brilliant but so young, so hopeful but so burdened by expectation. His every instinct had prompted him to nurture and protect her as a father might, but she had set her boundaries quick and made it clear that she neither needed nor wanted his attention in that way. It had taken several months before she opened up to any of them enough to _laugh_ , but once she did, she had quickly established a place for herself as a peer amongst those twice her age.  
  
Still, her laugh sounded forced more often than not these days. _Tired_. It was nice to hear it _pure_ again.  
  
“A fair point,” she conceded, unaware of the meandering direction of his drug-hazed thoughts. “Besides, if I reported every patient who ever flirted with me while high, I’d have no patients left to treat!”  
  
“Hrm.” Only when she mentioned it did he actually realize how keenly he now felt that distant floaty feeling that accompanied strong pain medication. The pain wasn’t gone -- nowhere close -- but the sharpest edge of the agony that had driven him to his knees had been dulled, and he clung to that small but blessed relief with the appreciation that came only with recently knowing much worse. “I _do_ seem to remember you getting a marriage proposal…?”  
  
“More than one. Near-death experiences can be life-changing, and some people react strongly to it. Some people are far too grateful for medical care. While some _other_ people,” he didn’t even have to open his eyes to feel her pointed glare at him, “are determined to kill themselves, despite my best efforts.”  
  
“ _Someone_ must fight, Angela.”  
  
She sighed yet again, perhaps resigned to the fact that this was an argument that she could not win. _For now_. She was every bit as stubborn as he was, and they both knew this wouldn’t be the end of this.  
  
“I promised Torbjörn that I would look after you out there, did you know that? He’s going to be _furious_.”  
  
Reinhardt grunted softly. Yes, he could imagine it. Torbjörn would meet them at the landing pad. He’d be _spitting_ mad, and he wouldn’t pull any punches just because Reinhardt didn’t have the strength or will to argue right now. “Not at you.”  
  
“No, not at me. At _you_ , yes. He’s your best friend, and he worries about you. He _knows_ you don’t take care of yourself the way you should. What about your Brigitte? She will be beside herself, I imagine. Fareeha only just realized that you aren’t invincible, I think. And Lucio! He seemed so rattled when I arrived at your side. He really looks up to you, did you know that?”  
  
Reinhardt _hadn’t_ known that. Lucio was a good boy. Brave, and dedicated to fighting for the oppressed, and always trying so hard to keep everyone’s spirits up. He had accomplished so much, so young. Despite being almost as physically disparate as two people could be, it was like looking in a mirror in some ways, and Reinhardt hoped he remembered these thoughts when he was more mobile and more coherent, so that he could act on them. No one should have to carry the morale of the team alone.  
  
“Good boy,” he murmured. “ _Brave_ boy. Sorry I frightened him.”  
  
“The point is, there are a lot of people who care about you, Reinhardt. I _know_ you feel as if you failed Ana and Jack and Gabriel, but there are many more of us still here, and many new faces who feel welcome and secure because of you, besides. You aren’t just a shield and a hammer to _any_ of us. I’m sorry that you seem to feel that your only worth to the world is standing between it and bullets. I don’t know where you got that idea, but I hope you’re still listening to me, and I hope you remember this.”  
  
He wanted to argue with her. He knew very well that part of the blame _was_ his. A warrior is not meant to live so long as to see the day when his body fails him, long enough to become a burden to those who still need him. The shield dies _first_ . If the shield does his job properly, no one should ever die so long as he still draws breath. He hadn’t been there when his Crusader brothers needed him. And the fact that Overwatch had forced him to retire so that he _wasn’t even there_ for Ana and Jack and Gabriel had never absolved him of the guilt, and he and Torbjörn sometimes argued about it late into the night. _He should have found a way, he should have fought harder to stay!_  
  
Yet there was so much more to it than that, so much more than Angela would ever understand. There would _always_ be people in need, and someone would _always_ have to fight. Every battle he fought was one that someone else didn’t have to. Every victory was someone’s life, and the joy of a family knowing their loved one would make it home okay. He made _vows_ \-- to always shield the weak, to always fight for justice -- and a _knight_ did _not_ break his vows!  
  
He wondered if flying to someone’s side to heal their wounds and save their lives in _her_ way felt the same to her as literally standing between another person and death felt to _him_. He wondered if it filled her with the same vigor and joy and _purpose_. Even drugged out of his agony as he was, the very thought of charging an enemy into a wall just in time to save someone with terror in their eyes filled him to the brim with happiness and pride.  
  
And yet… he found he didn’t really have the energy to ask her these questions, or even respond to her at all. It felt very strange to be so detached when there was so much that he wanted to say.  
  
A moment into a sleepy silence, he felt her fingers threading through his hair, gentle and tentative. She had never been an overly physical or demonstrative woman, in his experience -- partially due to her own nature, and partially due to the necessity of keeping firm boundaries in her line of work. That didn’t mean that she was _cold_ , however, or emotionally illiterate. She knew very well that he _was_ a very physical and demonstrative man, and he immediately recognized the gesture that she was making for his benefit. An apology, perhaps, for fighting with him while he was in pain… even if, he had to grudgingly admit, her anger had been perfectly justified.  
  
_Touch_ was, in many ways, like the absence of pain: he never realized how desperately he needed it until he had it. Sex had little to do with it (though he rarely turned that down, honestly). His need was much simpler than that: just the clap of Jesse’s hand on his back, Brigitte’s small hand in his, the warm embrace of one of Torbjörn’s children clinging to his neck. Or this: the comforting hand of a friend in his hair, on his cheek, kneading the back of his neck.  
  
“Go to sleep, Reinhardt. Once we’re home, I promise to do my best to make sure you can fight another day. Just… promise _me_ that you’ll let me help you. Promise me that you won’t keep trying to carry the guilt of the past and the hope for the future at the same time. One of those things is only dead weight, and the other isn't meant to be carried alone. No one’s back is that strong. Not even yours.”  
  
He wouldn’t let himself make that promise, because a knight did not, in good conscience, make a vow that he knew he could not keep.


End file.
